Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Yesterday, I logged on my cyber friend, Bruce Robbins' blog site, as I do every day. His blog is one that inspired me into starting my blog. Bruce started his blog as a Pentax K10D blog, then it mutated to Pentax Photography blog, and now, well...It will hopefully be Photography with a Pentax K10D and a Nikon D700 and other miscellaneous cameras blog.

Will his views and articles about photography in general change? I don't think so or at least I hope not. Here's a quote from Bruce's blog site: "And with a bit of luck and some sound financial planning (whatever that means) the purchase of the D700 shouldn't mean that I'll have to abandon Pentax entirely. I'm hoping to hang onto the K10D and the three DA Limited lenses I have. For portability, that outfit has the Nikon soundly beaten".

Bruce is upgrading to the Nikon D700 because of many reasons mentioned on his blogsite, but mainly because it is a full frame camera. It's a much more expensive ptoposition than the K10D or the K20D for that matter. Nikon got many people upset a few days ago by introducing the new D3X @ 24+MP at an astounding $8,000.00 price tag. Nikon fans have been asking for that for a while, and yet, as soon as it was announced, they all became angry at Nikon and complains came from all over the world. Just check a Nikon forum. Be careful for what you're asking for! Sony already introduced their 24+MP camera a little while back, and the CMOS used in the D3X is apparently the same Sony CMOS sensor.

As for me, I cannot imagine having a camera with a better value for my hard earned money than the Pentax K20D. It don't need to shoot like a machine gun, so the high count of frames/second is not that important to me. I'd rather shoot less photos of the same subject but think about my composition carefully. You know, there was excellent photography before the digital cameras. No matter what, you were limited to 36 consecutive shots with a 35mm film canister.

The K20D already has more pixels than what I will ever need, the image quality surpasses any of the 35mm SLR cameras I previously owned, and the ISO equivalent is higher than it was ever possible with film cameras. It may not be the cameras that need improvements as much as the users. Obviously, that's not the case with Bruce as he is an accomplished photographer. It may be the case for thousands of photographers, entry-level to some Professionals included. Hone your skills before you want to upgrade. Do you know your current camera capabilities fully? The new Nikon D700 or all the new costly DSLRs introduced lately will not make you a better photographer, it will just make you a photographer with the most expensive gadgets or it will make your badly composed pictures better exposed. Twenty-four Mega Pixels RAW files will kill your computer.

That also reminds me that we all have been wishing for Pentax to go full frame or to go ahead with the Medium Format Digital camera. Would we be ready for it? Would we be ready to pay thousands more for more pixels and a slight improvement of the image quality? Would our current computer equipment be able to handle it? We better watch what we are asking for. Are we ready for it?

As for Bruce's blog, I hope Bruce will continue writing about his Pentax DSLR and lenses from time to time.